Unlike the United States, there are parts of the world where clean water is considered a luxury. Many family vacations or work-sponsored business trips could take you to these places around the world. Before they do, however, it’s worth considering how the water quality could impact your travels. Guests from some of the most established hotels around the world have reported being exposed to some form of waterborne illness as a result of their stay. In some instances, this results from a dip in a hotel pool, breathing in contaminated droplets whilst in the hotel room and it’s even possible to become infected from a shower. Ensuring the safety of your family and yourself while traveling is imperative, and this post will detail exactly how to do so.
As seen from the resource featured alongside this post, Hotel Hygiene: Watch Out For The Water, remaining safe from these contaminants while traveling is particularly important for those families traveling with young children or families traveling with anyone that possesses a severe underlying health condition. The bacteria found in some of the water across the world can lead to life threatening diseases to those groups. The two diseases that this post will focus primarily on is Legionnaires’ Disease and Cryptosporidiosis.
Beginning with the former, Legionnaires’ Disease is an infection resulting from the Legionella bacteria. Prior to the first major breakout in the United States, not many people were aware of this bacteria. Setting the stage, there was an American Legion Convention being hosted in a hotel in Philadelphia in the late 1970’s. The convention hosted nearly 2,000 war veterans and Legionnaires. What these guests thought would be a celebration ended up being much worse. Of the 2,000, 182 were infected with Legionnaires’ Disease. 29 of those 182 would go on to lose their lives as a result of this disease, which lead to its namesake. The U.S Center for Disease Control would later determine that the source of the bacteria was from the hotel’s HVAC systems. This led to a spur of change in regards to regulations centered around the air conditioning systems in hotels. As a traveler, you’re relying on hotels and various stops along the way to maintain their air conditioning systems to avoid any exposure to bacteria such as Legionella. While traveling, if you have any inclination that the hotel you’re staying at has not taken proper care of these systems, it is in your best interest to evacuate.
Moving on to the latter, but certainly not any less dangerous, the parasite known as Cryptosporidium. This is parasite is much more commonly found in recreational waters supported by hotels. Think the various pools, hot tubs, saunas, anything water-related shared by all guests. While the symptoms aren’t nearly as dangerous as Legionella, they can still lead to a rather unpleasant vacation stay. Severe diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and more unpleasant feelings aren’t exactly anyone’s priority while on vacation. Those traveling in areas where water could be infected should become educated regarding strategies to avoid exposure to this parasite. If you or any member of your family becomes infected with this parasite, it’s also imperative to understand the most effective ways to avoid exposing other hotel guests to the parasite as well.
Unfortunately, these are only two of the countless number of dangerous microscopic contaminants lurking in hotel water sources. Plenty of other less-known contaminants infect the unknowing on a regular basis. In order to avoid these contaminants it’s best to follow these tips. Avoid drinking the water in certain regions of the world, default to bottled water when available. Prior to any sort of travel to unvisited parts of the world, conduct some research regarding the local water health situation. Any concern regarding the safety of the water should make you reconsider your trip, for good reason. For more information regarding water safety while traveling, be sure to check out the infographic featured alongside this post.
AUTHOR BIO: Chris Ebener is a mechanical engineer for LiquiTech, with a proven track record of diagnosing and remediating public water system issues of various sizes and complexity. Ebener is an expert on the biochemical makeup of facility water systems, system architecture and various methodologies of public drinking water treatment.